


Make-Up Sex

by fid_gin, unfolded73



Series: The Loved 'verse [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 15:40:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1352824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fid_gin/pseuds/fid_gin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does what it says on the tin. The Doctors have a fight, brood for a while, ... you get the picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make-Up Sex

**Author's Note:**

> Original posting date: January 11, 2011. Beta'd by jfiliberti.
> 
> This is another one focusing mainly on the boys. You'll find a lot of that, here.

Rose could hear shouting for several seconds before the doors to the TARDIS were flung open and the Doctor in brown entered, followed closely by his identical counterpart.

“It was the only way!” the Doctor in blue was saying, his voice still raised in anger. The other Doctor wasn’t answering, but the set of his jaw and the violent way he threw the ship into dematerialization told Rose the argument, whatever it was about, was far from over.

“What’s going on?” she asked them, trying to keep the panic out of her voice and failing. “What took you so long? It’s been almost three hours—”

“A few more minutes,” the Time Lord suddenly growled from where he stood stony at the console. She realised he was still addressing the other Doctor and not her. “That’s all I needed to get us out of there, but no, you couldn’t wait that long.”

“That door was deadlock sealed,” the Doctor in blue argued back. “We had a five second window to use the sonic in harmonic synchronization with those guards’ empathic wavelength, and that entire cell was going into destructive compress in another four minutes, or did you miss that part of the sentence?” She wondered what exactly they’d done this time to be put to death, but decided now was not the right time to ask.

“So you killed them?” the Doctor in brown sputtered furiously, his eyes flashing. “I was trying to give them a chance. They were _listening. That_ was the empathic synchronization that you used to murder them!”

“Five seconds!” the other Doctor shouted, facing off against the other man across the controls. “You’d been _giving them chances_ for hours, you really think you were going to change their minds and save our lives in the four minutes we had left?”

Rose bitterly regretted that she hadn’t followed her gut and gone with them on what was supposed to be a routine shopping trip for parts for the TARDIS. She almost never stayed behind when the Doctors went out, but she was getting over a cold and still feeling a bit peaky, and it had been very early in the morning (or what she perceived as morning) when they were getting ready to leave. Still in her dressing gown as the Doctors bounced around the console room, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Rose had waved them off and crawled back into bed for some extra, much-needed sleep. 

“Let’s just calm down, yeah?” she said now. “You’ve been through something bad, and the last thing you want to do is—”

“You killed them,” the Time Lord repeated. “And it’s like you don’t even care.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I care. I didn’t want to resort to violence, but sometimes, when we’ve tried everything else …”

“There was still a chance!” her first Doctor bellowed, teeth bared in a snarl. “You don’t try everything, _you_ shoot first and ask questions later!”

“Oh _bollocks_ ,” the part-human Doctor spat, now circling the console to face the other man properly. “Your hand just slipped when you detonated the infant Racnoss, did it?”

Rose walked quickly over to them, putting a hand up toward each of them. “You’re acting like children, d’you know that? You’re practically the same person, stop trying to make out like you’re better than each other!” She heard her own voice rising as she tried to make herself heard above them.

“I gave the Empress a choice,” the Time Lord continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “There’s always a choice, you need to understand that or you’re no better than the Daleks you slaughtered.”

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” the other Doctor asked. “You’re still smarting over the fact that I did what you couldn’t and defeated the Daleks, not you. Whatever bloodlust is in me came from you, you’re just jealous that I have the courage to use it!”

“I’m _grateful_ ,” the Doctor in brown said, slowly and quietly, “that whatever violence was left in me went to you. I just wish I didn’t have it following me around,” he added.

Rose’s jaw dropped at the blatant cruelty of that statement. Her second Doctor stood stock still and she could see a vein in his forehead throbbing for a moment before he spun on his heel and left the room without a word to either of them.

Silence hung for several seconds as the Time Lord returned his attention to the console.

“That was a horrible thing to say,” Rose said quietly.

“He needed to hear it.”

“What’s more, I think you’re wrong. It’s not bloodlust, it’s self-preservation. He’s only got the one life, Doctor, and I’m glad that he shows some interest in not throwing it away. You told him to be more careful, and that’s what he’s doing!”

“We have a _responsibility_. It’s not about throwing our lives away, it’s about not giving in to that baser instinct to inflict violence on another being. It’s about not holding ourselves up as the arbiter of who lives and who dies.” He stabbed the air with his index finger as he preached.

Rose raised an eyebrow at that. “What happened to ‘no higher authority’? Doctor, if you really believed that, then you wouldn’t travel around, stumbling into other people’s struggles for survival.” Before he could respond, Rose held up a hand. “I don’t really want to talk about this anymore right now. Frankly, I’m furious with you. No, scratch that, I’m furious with both of you for once again putting me in the position of trying to play peacemaker between you. It’s exhausting.”

“We aren’t children, Rose, much as you seem to want to treat us that way, and no one’s asked you to stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d felt like slapping his face, but she wasn’t sure if she’d ever felt the urge this strongly before. Rose’s nails bit into her palms as her fists clenched. “You know what, _fine_. You’re so superior to us pitiful humans, you can just enjoy your own company.” And before she did something she would regret, she left the room.

***

The part-human Doctor was not, he told himself, hiding. He was avoiding the other two occupants of the ship, yes, but it was only in the interest of sorting out his own thoughts and _certainly_ not because he was nursing any hurt feelings over what the other Doctor had said to him. He was angry, of course – his foot ached slightly where he had kicked a wall of the TARDIS earlier after leaving the room so as not to have to see the other man’s stupid, identical face any longer – but he had every right to be angry.

“ _Murder,_ ” he muttered, pacing back and forth across the floor of the TARDIS’ second repository of historical and alien artifacts where he had not-hidden himself, one of several museum-like spaces that he almost forgot was here on his ship most of the time. “That wasn’t murder, that was...”

He paused, the word he’d been about to speak frozen on his lips: defense.

A memory rose unbidden: Harriet Jones, her face drawn and tired, speaking that same phrase to him as justification for killing the retreating Sycorax. He remembered his fury, his complete bafflement with the entire human species and their enduring need to destroy. Now, though, he could almost understand her reasoning. She’d had a brief moment to make a critical decision and had acted in what she’d thought to be the best interests of the people she’d sworn to protect. In other words, exactly what he’d done hours earlier. His guts twisted with shame.

The fact was, he wasn’t as in control of his emotions as he used to be, or as he tried to pretend he was now. Every time he felt rage choking him when something threatened the lives of the people he cared about, or love and passion so intense it threatened to bring him to his knees, it was a fresh reminder that he was irrevocably changed by the metacrisis. Understanding the biochemical reasons for it, the changes to his adrenal system, the human hormones swirling in his bloodstream, didn’t make it any easier to bear. 

He remembered the anger he’d felt toward Donna on the Dalek Crucible when she’d told him to wait for the Doctor. The way he’d channeled that fury into his actions, into wiping every last Dalek out of the universe. He’d talked to Rose about that moment once, but he hadn’t told her that deep down, for just a moment, a tiny part of him had enjoyed it. After all the pain the Daleks had caused him, all the guilt he’d had over the centuries about his inability to stop their being created in the first place, it had felt good, it had felt _clean_ , to stop them this time without having to sacrifice anything in the bargain. Or so he had thought at the time. 

Perhaps the other man had been right all along. He was dangerous, too violent, too _human_ to be trusted with the guardianship of the universe. Perhaps it would have been better for everyone if he had been sealed off in another universe, without access to time and space travel. Without the opportunity to destroy on behalf of the people he loved.

***

He knew things were bad when the other Doctor effectively vanished for the rest of the day. Rose still wasn’t speaking to him, and the absence of both of them perpetrated the sort of crushing loneliness he hadn’t experienced since that call from Norway which brought his life to an abrupt and brilliant change. It made his hearts ache, remembering those hours between losing Donna and gaining his current companions.

 _“You’ve really cocked things up now, haven’t you?”_ he seemed to hear Donna say inside his head. It wasn’t the first time he’d imagined her speaking to him, but it was the first time it had cut so deep.

Oh, Donna. She would be furious with him if she could see him now; for hurting Rose, for hurting his other self. He’d known even while the words were leaving his mouth how cruel, how unfair he was being. Things _hadn’t_ exactly been going according to plan back in that cell, and the amount of time to make that brutal and, he knew, difficult decision had been brief. Maybe the other Doctor was right, he thought, and he was ashamed that he’d been unable to make that decision himself? Unable, once again, to save everyone he’d promised to save, only able to sit by as horrible events ran their course.

 _“So?”_ the Donna of his imagination said with a flippant shrug of her shoulders. _“Apologize then. You love apologizing; it’s your thing.”_

He didn’t want to apologize, not to _him_. Not to this man – this separate individual who was too like him and too different all at once – who inspired in him so many mixed emotions. Resentment, jealousy, desire, competitiveness, affection, self-hatred, all of it swirled around in his brain until he didn’t know which end was up most of the time. The thought of admitting he was wrong, of looking the other Doctor in the eye and saying he had been wrong … it was as difficult as truly admitting it, deep in his hearts, to himself.

The Doctor shook himself. The other man would be all right, he thought to himself. They were always all right.

 _“Oh God,”_ the Donna-voice lamented, _“we’re back to that again, are we? Maybe he’s not always all right, especially with you making him feel like some maniac. He saved your life, y’know!”_

“I was trying to do the right thing,” he said out loud, rubbing one hand over his face. “I don’t even know what that is anymore.”

 _“Didn’t you say it’s better that way?”_ the voice in his mind replied, and his eyes prickled at how realistically he was able to conjure the exact tone and mannerisms of how his best mate would have reprimanded him in this moment.

He swallowed against the burn in his throat. “I miss you,” he croaked. “You should’ve been there to stop me...us.”

 _“Oh shut it, Spaceman,”_ the Donna-voice in his head replied affectionately. _“You want to do what’s right? Then go say you’re sorry for being such a complete dope.”_ He could see the way she would have delivered this last, her head moving side to side, her eyes bright and challenging.

Donna, he thought again, this time managing a small smile. She had always been his conscience when she was with him, even now that she was gone she was apparently still more than willing to fill that role. Resigned, he stood and went to seek out the other Doctor.

Corridors seemed to stretch out infinitely before him as he walked, winding back on themselves, becoming a labyrinth. Patting the pocket of his brown suit jacket, he almost wished he’d brought a ball of twine to avoid losing his way, since his TARDIS was obviously messing with him. Perhaps she was angry with him too, he thought. Or, he added silently, perhaps the other Doctor wanted to remain hidden just that badly, and she was sympathetic.

“I’m trying to apologize, you know,” he muttered out loud, addressing his ship. “Nine hundred years, you still think you know better than anyone else. Bit hypercritical for a stolen ship, isn’t it?” The lights flickered briefly before resuming their customary golden glow. “Behave,” he warned under his breath.

He was in a part of the ship which he rarely visited anymore, he realised. Occupied with dusty old artifacts, forgotten history and obsolete Gallifreyan antiques, these rooms had lost a great deal of importance for him after Rose had come into his life. Once he’d fallen in love with her, he’d had very little interest in visiting the past – except, of course, when she asked him to.

The Doctor walked slowly through the first of the great halls, letting his fingers brush the faded surface of an ancient schematic here, the cold outstretched tentacle of an enormous stone statue there. He didn’t see the part-human Doctor where he stood several feet away until the other man spoke.

“We don’t spend enough time here,” he said, and the Doctor’s head whipped violently toward the sound. The Doctor in blue stood next to a large desk, thumbing through a crumbling old book which gave up puffs of dust with each turned page. “Sometimes I think I’m starting to forget.”

“I didn’t realise...” the Doctor started to say. His voice broke, and he cleared his throat before continuing.

“I’m sorry,” he said, at the exact same moment that the Doctor in blue said: “I was wrong.” They both chuckled, each mirroring the other’s nervous habit of rubbing the back of his neck before the Doctor in brown spoke again.

“There wasn’t time for them to reverse the sentence even if they _had_ listened, and I blamed you for my ...” He paused, not sure how that sentence was going to end. 

“No, I was angry,” his duplicate replied. “I’ve got all these …” He waved his hand in frustration. “...human emotions and I’m not as in control of them as I’d like you to think. When someone threatens you or, or Rose—”

“Then you act, and so do I sometimes. I’ve done things, violent things, we both know it.” 

“When you had to,” the part-human Doctor said.

“And that’s all you did today. You acted when you had to. I’m sorry,” he said again. After waiting for several seconds, he glared expectantly at the other man. “Well?”

“Accepted,” the part-human Doctor said after a moment of consideration.

“And?”

The Doctor in blue looked him up and down, seeming to size him up. “And I forgive you,” he answered, the corner of his mouth twitching as though he were fighting back a smile.

The Time Lord’s eyebrows shot up and he felt the urge to rise to the challenge and begin a good old fashioned righteous tirade against his other self, but he forced himself to calm down. “You can be a real bastard, you know that,” he said finally, almost smiling himself as he phrased it as a statement and not a question.

The other Doctor gave a half-shrug. “I suppose I learned from the best.”

“Quite right,” the Doctor said, almost proudly. The other man had, more or less, summed up exactly what he himself had come there intending to say.

“Doesn’t mean I was right,” his double continued. Again, the Doctor in brown cocked one eyebrow and waited, listening. He knew the other Doctor would speak when he was ready. “Today...lots of other times. When I was you, and after. I know I’m capable of losing control, maybe now more than ever. It...it frightens me,” he said, looking down as though he were ashamed at that admission.

“Me too,” the Doctor said quietly. “But not because I’m frightened of you, or because I resent you. You _did_ come from me, and you had no choice in being me and being faced with these decisions. I know how difficult it is, being me, and you’re...” He grinned suddenly. “You’re brilliant at it.” 

The part-human Doctor gave a short, loud laugh at that, his “Ha!” echoing from the walls of the large, nearly-empty room. He quieted, and they watched each other silently for a moment. “So what now?” the other man asked, thumbing his earlobe thoughtfully.

“I suppose,” the Doctor began, drawing out the word, “I’d better go apologize to Rose as well. I, ah...” He stammered. “I may have said some things to upset her, too.”

“It’s no good talking to her when she’s upset,” the Doctor in blue pointed out, frowning. “Best to let her cool down a bit.” As he spoke, he inched toward the Doctor, reaching out a hand and running it up the brown sleeve of his suit jacket. The Doctor looked down and watched its progress over the wrinkles of pinstriped fabric.

“You’re right,” he said, sounding almost dazed.

“There,” the other Doctor said, giving the arm under his hand a squeeze. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” The Doctor thought back to what he’d just said and opened his mouth to protest that that hadn’t been what he’d meant, but was silenced by the other man’s lips crashing into his.

It was a claiming, bruising kiss, the other man’s tongue immediately thrusting into his mouth to slide against his own. The Doctor felt hands curl into his hair, pulling, tilting his head to fit his mouth better against the other’s, and he wondered as he struggled to keep up whether he was being punished, or thanked? Either way he decided to just go with it, and returned the kiss just as fervently.

He wasn’t aware he’d been walked backwards until he felt his back hit wall. Gasping, he broke the kiss and looked from side to side to see they’d come to rest between the mounted skeleton of an extinct Skrowlt and a decayed wall hanging depicting the birth of the Eye of Harmony. The other Doctor seemed not to notice and was pushing at his duplicate’s brown suit jacket, sucking and biting at his neck. “Perhaps,” the Doctor breathed as his metacrisis found a very good spot just under his jaw, “somewhere more comfortable?” He reached down as he spoke, stroking the length of the other man’s hardening cock through the front of his blue trousers – a promise of things to come in this proposed more comfortable spot. Yes, he thought: a stumbling, kissing sojourn to whichever bedroom was the closest, a quick but wonderful fuck to smooth things over between them, then find Rose and earn her forgiveness with judicious application of their shared oral fixation – considering how rubbish the day began, the Doctor thought that it was shaping up quite well, thank you.

The Doctor in blue, however, seemed perfectly content where they stood. He held the Doctor’s hand in place against the front of his trousers, encouraging his fingers to continue moving against the fabric. Once apparently satisfied that a rhythm had been established, the other man moved his hand to the front of the Time Lord’s trousers to return the favour. The Doctor moaned at the warmth of the hand palming his cock through that thin barrier. His double abruptly removed his hand, pulling the Doctor’s away as well. Planting his feet apart for balance and leverage, gripping the Doctor’s arse and pulling him against him, the Doctor in blue bucked his hips forward, returning his mouth to the Time Lord’s as their bodies, exactly the same height and seemingly built for just such a purpose, thrust together once, then again. The Doctor’s great brain short circuited at the perfect friction and pressure of the other man’s erection rubbing against his own through far too much clothing. 

“More,” he heard himself murmur into the other Doctor’s mouth.

Then fingers were pulling at the clasp of his trousers, releasing it and pulling down the zip. The Doctor glanced down in time to see his duplicate shove his trousers down, leaving them pooled around his ankles as the part-human Doctor went to work on his own clothing.

The Doctor stood there, panting, feeling dazed and slightly ridiculous as his own erection protruded from below the tails of his shirt. He watched as the other Doctor freed himself from his blue trousers, also not bothering to do more than the bare minimum of undressing before he closed the distance between them again. 

Their mouths met in another sloppy kiss as their hips resumed the rhythm they’d established before, but now, oh yes, the way the other man’s bare cock felt against his brought a desperate moan to the Doctor’s lips. The other Doctor fumbled between them, his hand caressing and guiding, long fingers holding their cocks together as they continued to move. The Doctor clutched the other man’s arse, trying to pull him closer, fuse their bodies in a frenzy of thrusting and chasing that perfect bliss.

“Fuck yes, just like that,” his duplicate muttered, gripping the Doctor’s shoulder with his free hand as continued to stroke them both with the other. They weren’t kissing now, as if they didn’t have the ability to focus on more than generating friction between their bodies. The Doctor felt the scratch of the other man’s stubble against his cheek, the unyielding wall at his back, the delicious pleasure building in his groin and burning everything else away but a desire to come and to make his partner do the same.

He could have placed his fingers against the other Doctor’s temple, probed his mind, determined exactly when his orgasm was approaching so that he could match it. But he was loathe to let go of his duplicate’s arse, and he realized he didn’t need it, not with someone he knew so very well. Not when he could hear his escalating gasps, see the expression on his face, feel how hard he was.

The other man buried his face in the crook of the Doctor’s neck, whimpering as his hand faltered and the Doctor felt warmth against his abdomen and the sensitive skin of his cock. The sensation sent him over the edge, as he brought one hand around to replace the other Doctor’s and stroked one last time, coming with a shout. His hand was wet and sticky, and a quick glance downward told him their shirts would need the laundry, but he found he could feel no awkwardness about the decidedly awkward act they’d just engaged in. Somehow it felt _balanced_ , without the power dynamics of their usual sexual encounters.

“All right?” the other breathed against his shoulder.

“Of course,” he answered, amused at how cheerful his voice sounded to his own ears. “You?”

The other Doctor finally pulled back and looked him in the eye, and the Doctor found himself a little taken aback by how beautiful he was – how beautiful _they were_. Sweat shone on his duplicate’s forehead, and the Doctor could see small wisps of the other man’s hair stuck to it. That same hair, wild and untameable and inherited from himself in the metacrisis, stuck up everywhere as though it, too, had been excited by this adventure. His eyes were dark but clearing, and his cheeks mildly flushed. “My knees feel, um...”

He realised with some amusement that he wasn’t sure his double had actually experienced an orgasm while standing up since he’d found himself created in that part-human body. The Doctor wondered, with mild jealousy, whether the sensation was different for the other man, but the jealousy was quickly overtaken by a wash of affection and protectiveness for him. Smiling, he knelt and pulled up the other Doctor’s trousers for him, fastening and zipping and standing when he was done, pulling his own up along the way. “Thanks,” the Doctor in blue said, still looking a little wobbly.

They each straightened their clothes for a moment, the Doctor noting that it did little for how completely shagged and disheveled they both looked. Rose would immediately know what they’d been up to, he thought. Considering how angry she’d been at them earlier for fighting with each other, it might even work in their favour.

“Rose is probably calmed down by now,” his double said, as if reading his thoughts. “Better go face the music?” The Doctor felt his forehead crinkle as he drew his eyebrows together in confusion.

“It’s only been a few minutes since I walked in here,” he reminded his duplicate.

“Yes, well,” the other Doctor replied, looking thoughtful and curling his tongue against the inside of his front teeth. “We weren’t finished, were we?” The bold innuendo from his duplicate’s mouth both surprised and excited the Time Lord. When had he started being so affected by his identical counterpart? Even for him, he had to admit, that was pretty vain.

The part-human Doctor strolled from the room slowly, his hands deep in his pockets. Pausing, he turned to make sure the Doctor in brown was following him, and together they walked off into the depths of their TARDIS to find Rose.


End file.
